Brain

Exposure to secondhand smoke appears to be associated with psychological distress and the risk of future psychiatric hospitalization among healthy adults, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the August print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Older veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appear more likely to develop dementia over a seven-year period than those without PTSD, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Between 8.5 percent and 14 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq report serious functional impairment due to either posttraumatic stress disorder or depression, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Second hand smoke exposure is associated with psychological distress and risk of future psychiatric illness, according to new UCL research that suggests the harmful affects of passive smoking go beyond physical health.

Full-Service Partnerships (FSPs) are designed to do 'whatever it takes' to improve residential stability and mental health outcomes for homeless persons with serious mental illness. They are the cornerstone of California's Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) – one of the largest mental health policy experiments in recent history.

DALLAS – June 8, 2010 – A quick, painless eye measurement shows promise as a way to diagnose multiple sclerosis in its very early stages, and to track the effectiveness of treatments, researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in a multicenter study.

Researchers at India's National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and New York University's Center for Neural Science have identified novel synaptic defects in an area of the brain that is involved in the debilitating emotional symptoms of Fragile X Syndrome (FXS). FXS is the leading known genetic cause of autism and mental retardation.

COLUMBUS, Ohio- New research suggests that pre-school students may gain more language and literacy skills if they have teachers with higher levels of confidence in their abilities.

However, in some cases students only saw gains when their teachers also had classrooms that emphasized emotional support for the children.

Los Angeles, CA (June 7, 2010) Retail therapy can soothe the defeat of losing a major client, the rejection of not getting a promotion or even the embarrassment a high-powered executive might feel after receiving a speeding ticket. Spending money to uplift a damaged ego provides more than comfort; it restores the equilibrium of what lies at the foundation of Western culture - power and social hierarchy.

SALT LAKE CITY—Research unveiled at SNM's 57th Annual Meeting points to the possibility of a new hybrid molecular imaging system that uses single photon emission tomography (SPECT) and magnetic resonance technology (MR). The new technology could provide a greater depth of information about an array of biological processes and anatomical information including soft-tissue contrast, which is important for many diagnoses.

SALT LAKE CITY—Research unveiled at SNM's 57th Annual Meeting shows that scientists are drawing closer to documenting the progression of a disease process believed to cause Alzheimer's disease. This research could eventually lead to life-saving preventative measures for millions of patients who suffer from this chronic neurodegenerative disorder.

SALT LAKE CITY—Research revealed at SNM's 57th Annual Meeting is furthering efforts to use molecular imaging as a means of early detection of Alzheimer's disease. Researchers are striving to detect the disease as early as possible by imaging the formation of a naturally-occurring protein in the brain called beta-amyloid, which is thought to be closely linked to disease onset.

SALT LAKE CITY—A multinational clinical trial revealed at SNM's 57th Annual Meeting presents a novel imaging agent that could be the next major breakthrough for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease—a slow but fatal neurodegenerative disease. The new agent is used in conjunction with a molecular imaging technique called positron emission tomography (PET) and works by binding to beta-amyloid, a naturally-occurring protein that builds up in the brain and is thought to be a precursor to Alzheimer's.

CINCINNATI–When seizures strike, the most immediate goal for caregivers is to get appropriate medication to the patient as quickly as possible to stop the seizing activity.

In a paper published in the June Academic Emergency Medicine, UC emergency medicine assistant professor Jason McMullan, MD, found that the best means of stopping status epilepticus (SE) may be with the least direct medication.

When it comes to pain, the two competing schools of thought are that it's either "all in your head" or "all in your body". A new study led by University of Oxford researchers indicates that, instead, pain is an amalgam of the two.

Depression and pain often co-occur, but the underlying mechanistic reasons for this have largely been unknown. To examine the interaction between depression and pain, Dr. Chantal Berna and colleagues used brain imaging to see how healthy volunteers responded to pain while feeling low.